The Dead & Dying

some of the blood inside.

“Y-you listen to… to C-Carl. Okay, baby? Listen to Carl.”

Her voice was getting more and more quiet with each word and I started shakin’ my head back and forth.

“I don’t wanna listen to Mr. Carl, Mommy, I wanna listen to you. I just wanna listen to you…”

“Shhh… it’s okay, b-baby. I love you. Always re… always remember that. Always remember how much I loved you.”

Mr. Carl was runnin’ back into the room now and he had all these towels in his hands and he was sayin’ something but I couldn’t tell what.

All I could think about was how somethin’ was different, how somethin’ had changed. I couldn’t feel Mommy’s chest moving up and down against my back anymore and her hand had stopped petting my arm and was just kinda layin’ there.

I rolled over and started shakin’ her and I don’t really know what I was sayin’ but I know I was cryin’ and hollerin’ for her. But she wasn’t movin’ at all and she was just looking up at the ceiling and not blinking or anything.

Next thing I know, Mr. Carl was trying to pull me away from her and I kicked and scratched and fought and all I wanted was for him to leave me and my mommy alone, to just let me lay there beside her and hold her and keep her safe from all the monsters in the world.

But he was so much stronger than me and he just carried me out into the hallway and then slammed the door real quick in my face. I remember pounding on the door, yelling at him to let me in, that I wanted my mommy and didn’t want to be alone and he better open up right now.

When he didn’t I dropped down to my knees and peeked through the keyhole, just wanting to be able to see Mommy again.

Inside the room, Mr. Carl was standin’ at the foot of the bed and he had his face pressed into his hands and I could tell he was cryin’ but nowhere near as much as me.

But then I felt my heart kinda skip a beat or two and I began smilin’ real big and I was cryin’ then because I was happy, happier than I had ever been and happier than I ever knew I could be.

“Mommy!” I hollered. “Mommy, I’m out here!”

Mommy wasn’t dead after all, the monster’s hadn’t got her. As I was peeking through the keyhole, I saw her fingers start movin’ like she was trying to grab something that wasn’t there. And then she was sittin’ up in bed and she looked like she was really, really sick but at least she was still alive. At least I had my mommy back and would never have to be alone again.

But as I watched, I saw Mr. Carl take a step backward as he pulled out his gun. I started bangin’ on the door again and started yelling for Mommy to look out, for Mr. Carl to leave her alone.

And then he shot her. Just like that. He didn’t say nothin’ or anything. He just shot her.

I squeezed my eyes shut but it was too late. I’d already seen the way the hole just seemed to open up in her forehead, the way the blood splattered against the wall behind her as her body fell onto the bed again.

Just like that, he killed her. Just when I thought everything was gonna be okay. Just when I thought I had my mommy back and things would go back to the way they had always been.

But I knew then that things would never be the same again. No matter what happened, he’d taken my mommy away from me.

He had killed her.

And I wanted so badly to bust down the door and take that gun from him and do the same thing to him.

Mommy always said I shouldn’t hate.

But she’d understand.

I know she would.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: CARL

Doc has pulled up a chair and sits beside me, leaning slightly forward with his hands folded in his lap. Was the chair there just a minute ago? I’m not sure… I don’t think so. I thought this little shack was pretty much empty except for me and my belongings. But it must’ve been, right? Otherwise, where would the dang thing have come from?

“You’ve messed yourself up real bad, my friend.”

I always liked the sound of Doc’s voice: it has kind of a scratchy quality to it, like a blues singer the morning after a gig in a smoke-filled club.

“You’re telling me…. ”

I try to manage a weak laugh, but even that small act sends streaks of pain racing outward from my wound like baby snakes fleeing the nest.

“I’m dyin’ here, Doc. Fuckers bit me bad.”

Doc leans back in the chair and studies me for a minute. He looks me straight in the eye and chews on his bottom lip, just like he always did when something was on his mind.

“I wasn’t talking about your injuries.”

We’re silent for a moment, each of us looking at the other, feeling like there’s so much to say but too few words to express it all. This man was like a brother to me and I’ve missed him so damn much since we parted ways. More than I’d ever let on.

After what could have been half an hour or just a few minutes, he clears his throat and speaks again.

“You remember the time we saw that tornado, Carl? Somewhere in Iowa maybe?”

It hurts too much to talk, so I simply nod my head. How could I not remember something like that?

We were standing on the roof of an old music store, tryin’ to get the lay of the land so we could figure out where we wanted to head next; lightning flashed to the south and the horizon was covered with clouds so dark and low it almost seemed as if they had grown too heavy to stay aloft and were sinking like leaky dirigibles toward the ground.

“That’s a wall cloud.” Doc had said. “If we’re lucky, we might be in for a treat. It’s got some good rotation going on.”

Almost as if he’d called it into being, a funnel started forming beneath this pendulous cloud. At first it was nothing more than a twisty, white ribbon but, as we stood watching, it stretched toward the ground, growing longer and wider with every passing second.

It was kinda magical watching this thing form literally out of mid-air: for a while I was able to forget about the rotters clustered around the base of the building and the way they clawed at the brick as if they could somehow scale the side if they only tried hard enough; I was able to forget the abandoned buildings of this town, these monuments of a world that would never be again, the bloodstained sidewalks and shop windows shattered on the streets.

“Still a chance it might break up. I’ve seen it happen. You think the sucker is going to touch down and then it just dissolves into the sky.”

Once, the town below us would have echoed with the wail of sirens as people scrambled into basements and storm cellars, rushed through red lights, and tried to find whatever shelter they could. But now the streets were empty except for a few rotters who straggled their way toward us; now we could only hear the wind in the distance, sounding like a cross between a jet engine and the roar of a waterfall as cool wind blew through our hair.

The twister didn’t break up after all. Within minutes there was a swirling umbilical cord connecting earth to sky and Doc handed me the pair of binoculars he’d been holding.

I lifted them to my eyes just after the funnel had ripped through a farmhouse as if it were nothing more than a child’s creation. For a moment I forgot to breathe as I watched the cloud of dust and debris at its base: compared to the vortex above, this cloud seemed to roil and churn in slow motion… almost as if the twister had ripped the fabric of time and allowed the secret workings of the universe to seep out.